


Five Times Skye Touched The Back Of Coulson's Neck

by zauberer_sirin



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Angst, F/M, First Kiss, Fluff, Future Fic, Hotels, Romance, Sparring, Unresolved Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-28
Updated: 2015-04-28
Packaged: 2018-03-26 06:22:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,277
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3840346
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zauberer_sirin/pseuds/zauberer_sirin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She likes that bit. And the rest of him as well.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Five Times Skye Touched The Back Of Coulson's Neck

**Author's Note:**

  * For [hamsterfactor](https://archiveofourown.org/users/hamsterfactor/gifts).



**i.**

The first time it happens can be written off as an accident, really. Something silly.

"Well, you did say you wanted to get back into training," Skye tells him as they both take a defensive stance on the mats.

She's not sure whose idea it was, sparring together, or if they just happened to be on the gym at the same time. She's happy for the company – and it keeps her on her toes, having someone other than May to train with, so she doesn't get used to just one partner. And since he's not Director anymore Coulson has been going on and on about wanting to clock more time on the field, and that means more training.

Taking on new sparring partners polishes your reactions, she's learned that from May, and Coulson's form is quite different to what she's used to. It should be good for her skills.

Still weird.

It's strange looking at Coulson and trying to assess him as a threat. She hasn't had to do that before. Surprisingly enough they haven't been on missions together, not properly, not shoulder to shoulder, so she hasn't had to think of his abilities as an agent in that sense before. She has never had to think about him as danger, never as an enemy. She has a fleeting, unpleasant flashback to that time when Coulson was under the influence of the GH drug and he pushed her into the vault cell. She remembers being startled and not scared, startled because she didn't think Coulson's body could ever be the enemy.

She looks at his body. He's not a large man. She's had to take down bigger. And Coulson is not stocky but he has a surprisingly good balance. That's going to be a problem, rather than his strong arms.

The try each other out for a couple of rounds, prodding for weaknesses. At first Skye stays in the receiving end, to see what he would do; she already knew Coulson had a strong punch, she's trying to figure out just how much of it she can block, how much she can stand, and how to turn it against him.

He also fights a bit dirty, when things stop going his way. Skye was not expecting hair-pulling, and she guesses this is good. Out there no one is going to go for fair play. She has to kick his ankle and do it seriously to get him to loosen his grip.

She steps back from him, a bit startled, panting for a moment. Coulson watches her. She swears there's satisfaction in his eyes.

"You fight dirty," Skye comments.

"You can provoke earthquakes – let's say I start at a disadvantage."

"I'm not going to use my powers in a fair fight."

"There are no fair fights," Coulson says – kind of cryptically but kind of cool – and Skye almost misses the cue and barely has time to put up her left arm and block the hit. She's a bit late and the contact makes her stumble on the mats.

So that's how it is.

She's not normally competitive (she knows that drove May crazy at first, which was its own reward) but something about Coulson's changelling look right now fuels her. She's curious about it.

She's making him sweat. She can tell minute by minute, the longer the fight goes on. A thin film of sweat covering his body, barely visible. And he's breathing is becoming more labored, even though he hides it well. He knows how to ration his energy. That's experience, Skye thinks, and she knows she could learn from that. She still doesn't know how to control that part, how much and how soon should she spend herself in battle.

They keep seizing each other up.

Coulson is looking at her and assessing how much of a threat _she_ is. Skye likes that. It makes her feel good. Coulson is not messing around, he's giving his all. He looks at her body, worried and admiring. Respecting her power.

"Where did you learn to fight like that? May taught you some tricks back at the Academy?" she asks him.

"What makes you think i didn't teach _her_ some tricks?" Coulson says.

Skye snorts and rolls her eyes at the same time. "Please."

"No, I could never fight in her style," he tells her, while circling around her. Skye notices he is trying to back her against the column while he speaks. "You require some raw talent for it and I never had that. I had to make do with what I've got."

"Modest," Skye comments, watching his footwork from the corner of her eye.

"Not at all," he says, trying a low right as if to prove a point and yeah, okay, Skye actually has a lot of trouble blocking that one and he gets her a bit on the ribs, enough to make her back down and out of the circle Coulson had been walking around her. "Fury taught me to fight like this."

"Ah."

"He didn't teach _me_ ," he clears up, as if he needed to. "He taught a bunch of us last year Ops. Even Garrett. We were lucky. He taught us that if you can end a fight in one blow you should never throw two."

Skye rubs her side. "That's why you hit so hard?"

"That and I have really strong arms," he says, smirking.

He's managed to get her where he wanted, or so he thought, and Skye uses the move with which Coulson was hoping to throw her against the column to grab him by the wrist and upper arm – strong arms, uh? not always such an advantage – to reverse their positions. Coulson is the one flung against the hard cement, the blow against his back knocking the air out of him.

Skye smiles, waiting for him to recover. "Come on. What else did Director Fury teach you?"

And he does show her a couple of moves. When she tries to come at him for a scissor legs takedown Coulson somehow manages to have her with her back on the mat, holding her down. He's got her pinned (or so he thinks), feet hooked over Skye's tighs, knees at each side of her waist, settling the whole weight of his body onto her hips. Skye is very aware they've never touched this much before. She wonders if he finds it weird, inappropriate, and if she can use it to turn the tables. She rolls her hips but he doesn't recoil. She struggles against the grip on her wrists, seemingly to no avail, just to make Coulson complacent. She can see it in his eyes, feel it in his weight, an opening. Then she plants her feet and pushes until she flips him over.

Coulson lets out a breath of surprise as _she_ pins him down and then turns him on his stomach with a vicious grip on his elbow, pulling his arms behind his back and putting all her weight on his hips this time, holding him face down on the mat. It's kind of weird, having her boss' ass between her legs like this (she never thought too much about that sort of stuff with May, mainly because it was rare Skye got to be the one dominant) but she enjoys her triumph for a moment.

She releases him and Coulson huffs, visibly annoyed, drops of sweat over his brow, and when he turns towards Skye again he doesn't waste a moment and his forearm connects directly to Skye's shoulder, almost making her stumble and fall.

"You really didn't like that, uh? Didn't Fury teach you how to be a good loser?"

"Who's losing here?" he says, cocky, or fake cocky anyway, because his next blow Skye easily blocks.

"You," she says. "You're losing."

He smiles. "May can't like you talking during training."

"Oh I don't talk when I spar with her."

"No?"

Skye handwaves it.

"With her it's serious stuff," she explains. "I can't afford to get distracted."

She swears Coulson groans at that, kicking Skye behind the left knee. She loses footing at that one, she gives him that, landing on her hands and knees, but she's fast enough to roll away before Coulson lands another kick while she's on the floor. She can't believe he's actually let her do this, rile him up. Coulson is cool and collected under pressure. This stuff doesn't get to him. She feels a bit proud that her skills have provoked such a reaction.

"There's no dishonor in getting a beating from a subordinate," she tells him. "A vastly less experience subordinate, basically a novice compared to your years of – _shit_."

It makes little difference that she managed to lift her arm and block this blow in time because it was powerful enough that Skye got hit in the face by her own hand and tripped back until she could blissfuly balance herself on the column. Holy shit, that was some punch.

Coulson steps back but keeps his aggressive stance.

"Okay?" he asks, looking slightly worried. 

She's got worse from May, but she gets why Coulson would worry about having crossed a line here. He doesn't need one of her jokes right now.

Skye touches her lip experimentally. No harm. She nods. "It's fine, Coulson, don't worry."

He nods back at her as she steps into his space again.

His eyes flick to her left. Skye has noticed he doesn't feint too much, that's not his thing. But this time she has a gut feeling. Maybe it's her powers, she knows how to do this. Read people's vibrations. Sometimes it gives her a slight edge against her enemies. Coulson is the enemy right now. 

She doesn't fall for it. She waits for the next blow. She gives her boss a come-at-me look.

Coulson puts a little too much power in the punch (rookie mistake) and once Skye avoids it (not easy) it's not hard to just put one foot between Coulson's and trip him. The way he lands on his back, hard, signals the end of the fight.

By the time he recovers from the fall – sitting on the mat and breathing heavily, wiping his forehead with the inside of his arm, the thin film of sweat all over his body noticeable now as his workout clothes stick to his body – she is already out of her sparring gloves and offering a hand to him.

Coulson takes the hand, if reluctantly so, lets Skye pull him up.

He frowns at her, looking like he hates her for a moment, in a childish, gut-reaction way. Skye laughs at his bruised ego. It has to be a novel sight, and she's glad she got to provoke it.

"Aw, did I wound your pride, Agent Coulson?" she teases and she runs her fingers across the glistening back of his neck, teasingly.

Coulson freezes. And Skye does too. It's not a normal gesture between them. It's not a normal gesture for Skye _at all_. It was familiar, intimate. Skye wonders if she is so starved of that sort of thing these days that she'd just touch anyone.

(Coulson is wondering if _he_ is so starved for this sort of thing these days and that's why he likes it)

"Sorry," Skye says. " _Wow_ , that was completely unprofessional of me."

"It's okay," Coulson says, quickly to recover from his surprised (disgusted? totally disgusted?) expression.

"I swear to you, sir, I don't go around _touching_ my teammates without their permission," she adds.

"You mean apart from beating them to a pulp?" he says, defusing the tension instantly.

He rubs his elbow and smiles at Skye, and that seems to close the door on the subject – except Skye can't stop thinking about it, afterwards, flexing her fingers and remembering how it felt, if she had had time to actually feel anything and not imagine things.

(Except Coulson can't stop thinking about it, afterwards, absurd as it seems – _impossible_ really – distractedly running his fingers over the spot on his neck, where Skye touched him like she did that every day, like they did that, and he keeps rubbing the back of his neck as he takes a shower after that session on the mats, and he swears he keeps doing it for days)

 

 

**ii.**

When the world comes back into focus she is sore all over. 

She rationally knows she's resting in a very soft bed, but it feels like rocks to her, all sharp and hard and un-bedlike. She has this sudden fear that her arms are immobilized, in casts again, like she's back on last year and hurting herself with her powers. But when she wakes up she realizes that's not it. It's regular mission-related pain. Regular mission fuck-up. Her arms hurt – but only just like the rest of her does.

Coulson is there and as she remembers the details of why she is here and why everything hurts – the mission, Coulson's call – she is not surprised to see him waiting by her bedside.

His eyes look awful, like he's ten years older, and Skye wonders how long she's been out and if he's been here all the time. Probably, knowing Coulson. She doesn't question these things anymore. Well, she never did.

"Please tell me you are not here to debrief me," she says, eyes still half closed. There's not much light in the med bay but it still hurts. Her eyelids are like full of tiny needles.

"That can wait till tomorrow," he says. Tomorrow? Skye thinks. She was hoping for a week off paperwork. What's the point of getting injured in the line of duty if you still have to go through debriefing like the rest of the agents? It's unfair. "I'm here to ask you how you are."

Skye narrows her eyes at him. She can't look very good.

(She looks pale and rough and alive and the alive part is more than enough for him)

"Do I have to...?" she says, giving the machines monitoring her the stink-eye. She doesn't like monitoring. Plus her vitals aren't exactly human anyway.

"Let me," Coulson says, standing up to take the mess of wires from her chest and arms.

She thanks him and tries to wiggle herself out of the uncomfortable half-sat position. Ouch.

"Why does everything hurt?" she asks.

"Because you almost got killed," he says. He pauses. He pauses for a long time and Skye doesn't realize she's waiting for the follow up until he speaks again. "And it –"

"It wasn't your fault."

Skye can't believe he's doing the thing. He never does the thing. It's one of the greatest things about him. And it's late and she's tired and she doesn't want to fight with him.

Then he half-smiles, and yes, he's still doing the stupid guilt thing, but at least he's doing it his way.

"Well, it kind of was, if you think about it."

Well, he's not exactly wrong, but she'd rather not think about it, what with her tongue feeling like sandpaper and her head weighting a ton right now.

She'd rather not think about it, just stay here comforted by his presence. Maybe he doesn't know it, but it helps, when he's here. It's not so bad, waking up from a near death experience to the worried face of the person who actually cares if you live or die. That's unfair, Skye knows a lot of people care if she lives or dies, but not quite like Coulson.

"You had to take care of the hostages first," she tells him, because she cares too. "I could handle myself."

Coulson gives her body a look.

" _Evidently_."

They share a chuckle over her pathetic state – she has powers for god's sake, she should be spared human weaknesses like getting hurt on missions – but soon the somber tone settles over Coulson again. 

He's been a bit weird about leadership and responsibility since he's no longer Director of SHIELD, like he finds it hard to fall back on caring just for his team. He could never do that, Skye knows. He always cares about everyone, that's what's great about him. But the day-to-day worries, the being in this in-between, has wrong-footed him. Skye is okay with _just Agent Coulson_ but she wonders if he regrets it. He'd never say, of course, even if she asked.

"Hey. You saved a bunch of people back there," she tells him.

He arches one eyebrow.

" _You_ saved a bunch of people."

"Potato, po – _ouch_."

Yeah everything hurts. Even her mouth when she talks. Definitely her neck when she tries to make an expressive tilt of the head. Bad idea.

Coulson draws his chair closer to the bed.

"Do you want me to call Simmons?" he asks.

She shakes her head. "I think we've enough of the Insomnia Club between the two of us."

"Yeah."

He looks embarrassed for a moment. Like he's done something bad by staying by her side. Skye fears he might want to leave. She's okay, she really is. She'd just rather have the company.

"Thanks for staying with me," she says.

Coulson looks at her like he thinks it's the least he could do.

He drops his head, still doing his worried-guilty face. Which, _stop_.

Skye reaches her hand – everything really is sore – to the side of his neck.

He freezes for a moment (Skye has the strangest sense of deja vu) but then he relaxes into the touch. It's very deliberate, Skye can't claim it isn't. It's intimate. She means it to be. 

(He still likes it. He still wonders about it.)

She moves her hand further, gently scraping her nails across Coulson's nape. His skin feels hot under her fingertips, but his hair is short, a recent crew cut, and inviting. She stops herself from playing with his hair like she wants. That's _too_ intimate. She just means to comfort him.

Coulson nods at her, like he understands something Skye hasn't asked him to understand.

They don't say anything else for the night, but he doesn't leave her side either.

 

 

**iii.**

She gets this feeling like when you are a kid and you eat too much candy.

No, that's not it.

That's heartburn.

This is... heart _something_ , that's for sure.

She locks her hands behind Coulson's neck as he finishes kissing her, pressed against one of the walls of his office.

Like when you run too fast and your side aches. That's the one.

No, this is different.

He pulls back, breaking the kiss – did she kiss back? she meant to, but she was too distracted – and his face is still too close, his breath too hot.

His eyes search hers desperatedly.

"Skye, please," he pleads.

Like he doesn't know how she feels about him.

(She's killing him. He didn't think he'd be doing this again.)

This is surreal. Like not knowing whether you've woken up from a dream or you're still there. Two minutes before the idea of Coulson pressing one open-palmed hand to her hip and pushing her against the wall to kiss her had been impossible to image.

Now all she can register is the sound of the record player, bereft once the record has ended. He was listening to something when she walked into his office. She wants to ask what record it was but that's a stupid question. She should be asking how long he has wanted to kiss her. Or why. Why did she want to kiss her?

( _Skye Skye Skye_ )

"Skye..." he calls again because she's so out of it.

He looks so... lost. He looks so unlike anything he's looked like before. _Oh_. She guesses that's why he wanted to kiss her. Wanted to gently push her against his wall and just do it. So unlike Coulson.

But he's waiting for her answer.

She didn't kiss back. Did she?

She touches her fingers to the back of his neck.

"You need a haircut," she says.

"That's what you have to say about this? _That_ I need a haircut?"

That came out wrong, definitely. She doesn't know how to explain it.

"It's just that," she brushes the side of her index against the spot. "I love this bit of you. And... every other bit."

Not the smoothest of love declarations, granted, but she's too nervous for smoothness. She runs her fingers down his neck and then along the line of his jaw.

Coulson seems to think that's enough.

He kisses her again.

This time she remembers to kiss back.

 

 

**iv.**

You know that bit in the movies when a Not A Couple tries to book twin beds in a hotel but they only have rooms with one bed? Skye is feeling the opposite of that.

There's only a room with two beds left. Not ideal and Skye was really looking forward to just lie on top of her boyfriend and cuddle and forget the day's snafu. Coulson looks like he could use some cuddling as well, despite his greater experience in hiding his disappointment.

They are just too tired to argue with the front desk.

They take the room.

Tiny beds.

Coulson groans in frustration.

"I'm going to take a shower," he says but Skye is too worn out to join him as usual. 

She drops on her tiny twin bed, clothes and all and closes her eyes for an undeterminated amount of time. When she opens them again the room has filled with the scent of cheap motel shampoo and Coulson's familiar deodorant. He walks between the two beds, pulling the covers on his away.

"You should try and get some sleep too," he says, touching Skye's knee lightly.

She undresses half-assedly and slips under the covers.

She thought she'd drop dead the moment her head touched the pillow.

She's not sleeping yet.

The blinds are broken – stupid third rate motels – and the light from the VACANCIES sign outside throws a weird green light into the room. Skye can make out Coulson's shape, lit like that. His back, the back of his head. She knows he's not sleeping yet.

She pulls the covers and steps out of her bed.

"Skye?" Coulson wonders at the noise.

"Make room," she orders him, slipping under the sheets and dropping her leg over his, resting one arm against his side.

He scoots over. For all the good that does.

"The bed is not big enough," he comments.

"Wow. You're such a romantic."

She can feel him smile. He takes the hand she's lazily dropped on his hip and takes it in his own, guiding it to rest over his stomach. That's better. She brushes her toes across his calf.

"Is there something wrong?" he asks.

Skye buries his face against the space between his shoulder-blades. It smells like him there. Less cheap-soapy and more the t-shirt he uses as pajama top.

She feels a bit lonely. It's the mission, mostly. The Welcome Wagon sounded a lot more fun when she gave it that name a couple of years ago. Maybe because there's not much fun for gifted people right now. Skye doesn't blame them for not wanting to accept their help and guidance.

Coulson being here, that helps.

And it's kind of fun, the late nights, the vending machine dinners, the awful wallpaper one has to wake up to in the morning. They've only been together for a couple of months so they are still on the dicovery phase of things – shared meals and shared rooms and miles and miles on the road are more bearable because they are still exploring each other as _each other_ , not as agent and superior. Skye wonders how this trip would have gone, if they weren't lovers.

"I'm fine," she tells him. "Just tired."

She lifts her head and touches her lips to the damp hair at the back of his neck, kissing him gently.

"We'll have more luck tomorrow," he tells her.

"Maybe."

Coulson runs his fingers over the back of her hand before lacing them together with hers once more.

"You're not responsible for every person with abilities in the world," he tells her.

"Yes, I am," Skye says. "And for every person without them too. That's how it works. That's SHIELD. That's us."

Coulson squeezes his hand.

"Try to get some rest."

"Mmm," she moans against his nape, hooking her leg over his ankle, trapping him under her. "Bed's too small."

He chuckles.

 

 

**v.**

Their world might be falling apart, but at least they have this, right?

She's not sure where they are – Fury's last safe house in Bogota, some forgotten rented room in Tulsa, all of it very glamorous – they've been in so many different places in the last few weeks. Skye loses track. She knows where she is _right here_ , with her legs around Coulson, with him inside her, and his arm around her back, fingers drawing the line of her spine. 

This how they make love now. Slowly, because nothing else in their lives stops to let them take a breath. With the feeling that any moment now someone could open that door and take them away. They make love slowly so they can memorize each other's faces. A precaution for unstable times.

"I miss the motels," Skye says.

"I miss clean towels," Coulson replies.

She smiles weakly and holds him closer, pressing her mouth against his collarbone. Is he thinner these days? Does she remember him as he was before?

"I miss vending machines," Skye says against his shoulder.

"I don't miss those," Coulson replies.

(Vending machines are fine, he just wants to make her smile. These days he lives for that. He can't do much else for her.)

Her lips curl around the curve of his neck.

She clenches around him, needing to feel him _more_.

He draws one hand across her back, grabbing her by the ass and pulling her closer. He knows.

"What they say about me on the news, and... the rest of them. That I'm a monster," she starts.

She has the feeling she has started this conversation a million times since this started. Like a ritual.

"If you're a monster then I'm a monster too," Coulson replies.

She widens her eyes. 

"Is that suppossed to be _reassuring_? That they'd kill you too?"

He lifts her by the hips and moves them both towards the pillow, pushing Skye on her back. She feels cold and bereft for the few seconds they are not touching as they should, while Coulson finds grabs the back of her thighs and slips into her again. Skye gasps at the change of angle.

Skye rests one hand over his heart. The scar there won't ever let them forget. Skye wonders if she is grateful for that. Maybe she is. Maybe she doesn't want him to forget. Forget he found her. In case he loses her. And what if she loses him? She wouldn't forget.

She moves with him. She forgets about a time when she didn't. When they didn't. It's better to forget. That way she doesn't feel they wasted so much time – god they wasted _so much_ time, they wasted years, Skye could cry if she thinks about it too much, they could have been like this sooner, in better times, why did they wait so long.

She touches his sideburns. There are more gray hairs there now. She wonders. She caresses the side of his face. There are more lines around his eyes now. Is that her fault? She tries to remember the creaking there when he smiles.

"Smile," she tells him softly.

"Why?"

"Because I want to check something."

He looks at her like maybe all this running away has made her lose her mind but he does it anyway. He smiles, and it's genuine and it's no lie and it's for Skye. Like his whole life being dismantled doesn't matter that much. Like he's still happy to be here.

What a fool, Skye thinks, lifting her other hand from his chest to his hair, threading her fingers through, touching the soft hair behind his ear, reaching around to the back of his neck, stroking him there until Coulson half-closes his eyes and let's out a soft moan.

"You need a haircut," she tells him, playing with his hair.

He half-smiles at her again.

"I haven't had much time, what with running from the authorities."

They still talk a lot when they make love.

The world can go to hell but still have this.

She arches her body to kiss him, and welcome him when he comes. He moves his hand between their bodies and gets Skye off while still inside her. She sighs against the touch, as close to being happy as these days allow.

It's not about being happy.

It never was.

Skye always thought Coulson was a bit too decent for happiness, she always felt a bit sorry for the man.

They lie on the bed, on this borrowed bed like the ones before, knowing they should rest, knowing dawn comes with a fight, a cruel, drawn-out, unfair, white-knuckled fight. Knowing dawm comes always too soon.

But they don't sleep yet.

On their sides, face to face. 

They never go to sleep _just yet_.

So far they have always gotten out alive. And that's not changing, because she won't let it change.

" _I_ find it reassuring," Coulson tells her, picking up that thread.

She knows what he means. She knows him. Coulson wouldn't like to leave him alone, even if it meant being hunted down by the government.

He's the optimist one, the one who thinks there's no need to memorize each other's face, each other's hands like this.

She caresses the side of his neck again.

"I can cut your hair for you," she says. Coulson gives her a funny, skeptical look. "If you want."

"I'd like that."

"We can't let ourselves go, just because people think we're monsters."

He smiles again.

She arches one eyebrow.

"What? _Now_?"

"You have a blade, right? Why wait?" Skye asks, already sitting up.

(She's not a monster, he thinks. But she might be a natural disaster. My own.)

They throw some clothes on before switching on the lights – dimmed, just in case, these things they have to learn to stay alive in the year when all goes to hell. Coulson fishes the blade and the shaver out of their bag.

He sits on the bare mattress, legs crossed, and Skye knees behind him, pressed against his shoulders. She touches his t-shirt, dark blue faded at the collar and soft from wearing it too long. She doesn't miss the suits. She thinks she likes this Coulson better. And all the other ones too.

"It feels nice," he says when she runs her fingers through his hair, considering the length.

She lifts the blade and realizes how absurd this is.

In a world where they don't know who to trust Coulson trusts her with a blade to his neck.

She realizes how necessary this is.

Life goes on. They make love. They get haircuts. They make each other smile. That's the point. The point of fighting. To keep this.

The world is not ending. Not tonight. It never ends _tonight_. Not when they are together.

She kisses the top of his head, soft graying hair.

"I'm happy," she says.

Coulson turns his head a bit. A deep frown.

"What?"

She wraps one hand around his neck and makes him turn around.

"Look ahead, let me work," she tells him. "God, you're so much work."

Coulson lets out a pleased noise.

Happiness is for other people.

Happiness, for them, is something like this.


End file.
